


The Same, But Different.

by HomesickAlien



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 20:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16562705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomesickAlien/pseuds/HomesickAlien
Summary: daily lives. a cafe date.





	The Same, But Different.

**Author's Note:**

> kind of a vent fic lol  
> got the title idea from vashti bunyan "same but different" this is probably really different from wht i wanted to be like half a year ago when i came up with the idea lol but i really wanted to write something today and this one just came to me !! i hope its alright, it's been a while! Excuse me!!

“You really ought to eat more.”

Shuu says, sternly, but with a tone that has an air of superiority and grace as to be expected of his Mentor. He speaks so mindlessly, but every word that drips off his lips sound so powerful, so intentional, that even when Mika fails to listen they’re stuck on him like pollen to his clothes. He never really forgets them, he’s just too stupid to follow through with them, too fearless to feel intimidated by the endless shrieking of a mother to a child. 

Well, he must admit, Shuu isn’t that persistent. He isn’t strict and insistent as the folks who raised him, even less could be said about his parents, but neither is worth dwelling on. His honest words aren’t wrong at all, they’re nothing Mika hasn’t considered constantly since the day he’d embarrassingly fainted in the halls only to be salvaged by the grace of his nemesis, of an Angel of Heaven who’s fallen from grace. Rather, maybe they’re the ones who’ve long since fallen out of God’s good will, maybe they were never there to begin with.

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. If he tells himself these things enough, they’re sure to come true. So he says it again, in his head, he doesn’t know.  _ I don’t care. _

“Are you listening to me, Kagehira? Are you going to order something or not? I won’t wait all day, and neither my parents will wait for us to come home.”

The words buzz in Mika’s ears, but he doesn’t really hear them. Doesn’t really digest them. Even from the one person he loves the most, he can’t really connect to it at all. The world at large is still so ominous and mystifying to him, he’d like less to be asked and more to be guided. It’s a pain being human, living consciously, deciding his own way to be; He’d tried those things, once, as a child, and it hadn’t been so pretty. Nothing quite compares to having his strings guided on the perfect stage, the most beautiful of platforms, without a care in the world he can lose himself in Shuu with a smile, but that moment can’t last eternally. It’s so ephemeral it’s hard to come down from such a high, it’s hard to reconnect to a world where people ask him why, ask him how, ask him who, what, when, and where. 

It wears him out. But he’s still breathing, nonetheless. Still listening. And as the time slips away through the cracks of their fingers, he does so respond. 

“How’s about this one…”

He points with his finger at a menu they share together. Not that he’d really looked at it, but he’s grateful not to have pointed at anything that looks too fancy. It’d be a pain on his stomach. Still, Shuu gives him a look when he meets his eyes, it’s a troubling look without a discernible expression. Like something between mourning and relief, Mika pulls at Shuu’s sleeve until he comes back from his thoughts enough to want to scold him again. It’s an endless back and forth between them, two broken people in constant fluctuation trying to save each other without ever trying to piece together themselves. When Shuu trips over his feet, Mika would give his life to catch him, but when Mika falls down the pit he never lifts a finger to crawl his way out. Endlessly, endlessly, they fail to teach themselves how to cope with the world. Each day bleeds the same.

“Do you like coffee?”

Shuu says, his voice floating gracefully in the air like a dance he’d perfected and Mika’s heart skips across rivers to reach him. He loves him in ways he locks deeply in his chest. He loves him in ways that prod at his insecurities. 

“Nah. Not really.”

“Tea’s alright, then?”

“A’course it is.”

Shuu hums softly his agreeance. “Of course.” He stresses, “It’s best you drink more often to keep from dehydrating. Eating is important, but make sure you’re drinking enough, too. If you strive for perfection, you should start with yourself, after all…”

“I’m takin’ good care a’myself. And whatever I forget I got Mentor t’take care of for me, right?”

“There’s no guarantee I’ll be here forever.”

His words sound harsher than swears, so dreadful and unsightly. He can’t stand to hear them, he’s always letting those ones go like secret wishes drifting off seas. But that kind of letting go is rewarding, is relieving, and Mika is only good for running away. Even for the person he loves the most, that he wishes he could spend his entire life with, he can’t be satisfied with the person Shuu is. He can’t be satisfied with himself, and it’s painful to remember that their time together won’t last all that much longer. 

It’s such a waste of time. Valkyrie is.

“Nnaaa… Don’t say stuff like that… It’s not… That’s not--”

“Excuse me.”

Shuu calls for someone to take their order without a second thought. He’s both a great mentor and a terrible influence on Mika, but he knows best when to pick his battles, and some things aren’t worth the pain of dwelling on. 

Their wait is impressively silent, particularly on Mika’s part, who doesn’t seem to be with it enough to be his general self. There’s just too many things to think about, about their future, about their relationship, neither of which are set in stone or clear to him. They blow up the clouds in his mind, until he can no longer think straight, and everything seems bleaker on the backdrop of a rainy day.

But when their food does come, it’s something to cheer over. It’s a pat on the back, a pick-me-up after scraping their knees. 

“Aaah, even though it seemed simple, it looks real fancy like don’t it? Even though it’s just a’pile a’fruit.”

Mika smiles bright like the sun, despite his off putting appearance it’s his signature look, his adorable and childlike refrain for the world shines off him. It’s as though nothing phases him, even when God is pushing the knife deeper into his chest he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t feel a thing at all, least of all pain. 

“Sometimes the nicest meals are as simple as fruit laid out on a fine platter. It is the best for both of us; You don’t like the taste of anything good for you.”

And Shuu, though he doesn’t say it when he scolds his own, doesn’t much like the taste of anything period. He’s probably more of a hassle that Mika is, but that semblance of disconnect, of hypocrisy, is never challenged by Mika. Not without betrayal, at least, or some other justification. He’s a passive child, after all, a child who just wishes to get through the day, without worries. 

“In that case, make sure you eat a lot, too. Ya don’t gotta eat any less for me.”

Mika laughs, picking up a fork and diving right in. They’re all so bright and colorful, it brings a little light into the dreariness of a winter afternoon. Covered in snow, trapped inside behind walls of his own making, he feels at home and at the same time the strain of any normal human being, stir crazed and at a loss. Their brains are so pitiful, their thoughts so meek, even as Shuu gives Mika a hand to walk on his own, Mika would rather cast those things away to be the starring puppet of their show. Of Itsuki Shuu’s show, which is perfect and lovely each and every performance, even after a thousand showings not a single mistake can be pointed to. Even Mika, without his thoughts, can’t possibly muddle something so perfect when Shuu caters to him. 

It feels so light, like a weight off his chest when it’s still buried deep within. When he takes his first bite, it’s sickeningly sweet and delicious all the same. It tastes like a kiss from the cutest girl in class, like the ocean engulfing him gently in her arms, like an Angel reassuring him there’s nothing left to fear in this world. It’s all in his head but he refuses to accept it as his own. He can’t accept his thoughts, yet they’re all his own, no matter how far he casts himself dissociating from this plane of reality. 

“It tastes delicious!”

Mika says, without ever swallowing, just like a child. He still can’t walk on his own two feet.

And Shuu smiles, a rarity for some that’s become an everyday experience for Mika, living with him as a part of his family. As a friend he holds dearest to him. And, he must admit, no matter how many times he sees it, it still looks the same as the first; on a tv some evening before bed, when God came to visit him on a stage so ephemeral, when he’d first seen Shuu act as an idol. As a sovereign, unmatched in every regard, even now he feels the safest in Shuu’s kingdom. He’s warmed by his grace. 

He wants to reach out to him and spill out his passionate feelings so desperately to Shuu. To fix the damage they’d done to themselves, to resolve an issue that’s already been overlooked. But he doesn’t have the words, not even one, that could treat their wounds. He feels so small, so empty, when reality sets in alongside the sun, it doesn’t feel real at all. He feels like a side character who’s destined to die off without a word. He feels like a human, destined to live without legacy, that all he has to cling to is the remanence of Valkyrie, a group of misfits that was never supposed to see the light at all. 

Back at step one, eclipsing Hell once more, they’ve been graced by a new kind of light. A new kind of image. The memory of who they were, and who they are now, are clashing in the worst of ways, that the picture never forms fully, and Mika hasn’t an idea of which path to step forward on.

“Kagehira?”

Shuu calls to him, pressing the last piece of fruit off his plate up to Mika’s lips. At some point in his thoughts he must of stopped eating, he always loses track of himself like this. It’s as though his memory is full of holes because he can’t think straight most days, because he hasn’t a brain at all. But it’s alright, to be Vulnerable, when he has the trust of someone like Shuu to keep reaching out his hand to him. Even if others can not see the light of Shuu’s heart, Mika is never ungrateful for being given the pity of God Himself. Who’s so dismissive. Who’s so bitter.

“It’s alright, you know?”

He doesn’t specify, but Mika understands, because neither so are his worries specific. They’re everything and nothing at all, that shoots like sparks off the flames of a house fire. His anger, his pain, his fears, are all so misdirected, or rather, so directionless. They feel like nothing at all, and in the same vein they’re the only thing that connects him to this world. That connects him to everyone he loves and everyone he doesn’t deserve. 

When their conversations are silent, the best of their feelings are expressed. Everything that failed to keep them attached to Nazuna holds them tightly knit now, through shared trauma they hold each other together until they can find the means to heal. And it’s not so bad, not as bad as it could be. There’s so many sights Shuu had never been able to perceive without experiencing loss, and just this once Mika sees it, too. Like a shooting star that zips through the sky, it’s there like a spark to his heart and a thought of acceptance in his brain that’s so cleansing he worries when his body starts up again, like an old machine rehabilitating to the world around him.

And then it’s gone, just as quick, but his body remembers it. And, for at least one day more, he can move through it. A painful day at Yumenosaki where he catches Nazuna’s smile down the hall. A bright and shining stage that grips his wrist and whispers in his ear that anyone could be their last. The sight of Shuu’s back as he moves forward so far ahead of Mika, that someday he may never be able to reach him at all.

Those fears are as ephemeral as they are eternal. But he’s certain he can move on, too, just this once, when Shuu takes his hand and offers the walk home together. Quiet, as nature sings the journey home, even if it isn’t his home forever the peace is there. They’ve built their house on unstable grounds, but their virtuous people, who adapt to any adversary in their way.

It was Mika’s promise to Shuu, after all. To make Valkyrie shine eternal, like a star who’s light hasn’t reached the world yet, he holds himself up to that. Even if Mika dies uneventfully, without anyone’s memories to keep him here, Valkyrie will always be a home for the smiles of lonely people. Just like him. Just like Shuu. 

**Author's Note:**

> comment please!


End file.
